Sunday Morning at the Christadelphian Synagogue, Birmingham, No. 65
“Exhort one another daily.”—Paul.
p. 208THIS beautiful Psalm (the 19th) is rich in fact and suggestion. The first six verses are quite a psalm of glory in themselves. They would well attach as a chorus or a doxology to the first chapter of Genesis, or the 38th chapter of Job: they answer well to the character of words suiting the occasion “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” Let us read again the first stanza of this splendid hymn of praise:—
“The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament sheweth His handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech;
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone throughout all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun;
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race;
His going forth is from the end of the heaven,
And his circuit to the ends of it;
And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.”
What a beautiful refrain to the six days’ work of creation, and what a sublime elaboration of the six times recurring phrase, “And God saw that it was good.” The heavens declare the glory of God, in that they answer so well to the purpose designed in their creation; or in the words of Psalm cxlviii. 8, they are found “fulfilling His word,” and it is thus they sound forth His glory, and bespeak to man perpetually the honour of His name, the greatness of His might, and the unsearchable riches of His wisdom and goodness. God has, as it were, written His existence and all mightiness p. 209upon all the works of His hands. They had need praise Him, though their voice be not heard: and this they do in that perpetual motion by which they all work to His law. The great mountains stand, the sea ebbs and flows, the thunder roars, and the lightnings flash; snow, hail, and stormy winds course their way; and seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, come and go to-day as in the most ancient times. The power that now sustains and controls them is the same that made them in the beginning. Were God to withdraw His living and unsleeping energy for a moment, all creation would collapse into chaos and thick darkness; and all nations would die simultaneously, as by the stroke of a sword. Those who cannot see God in nature will have still greater difficulty in seeing Him in revelation; and those who rejoice in the knowledge imparted by His Word, will be much helped in their true realisation of His boundless resources and creative omnipotence, by giving themselves up to those self-abasing consequences which result from a due and reverend appreciation of His handiwork. Well might David, impressed with the silent eloquence of the orbs of night, say, “When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers; the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou visitest him.”—(Psalm viii. 4.)
It is our immensely great privilege, brethren and sisters, to be able to say, all these are the works of our Father, and this is the beautiful domain He has fitted up for His Son, and in him for us who are now waiting with all the patience we can command his promised return from heaven.
Brethren, it is our comfort to be joint-heirs with Christ of such an extensive inheritance; we are looking for the answer to our well-grounded hopes and expectations in his re-appearing; we are waiting another genesis, the great times of regeneration, when the benighted heavens of this social order of things will flee away before the face of Him who sits upon the throne. Jehovah has faithfully promised us that He will create new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness—this righteousness is just the change required; when it prevails glory will be the consequence, even glory to God in the highest; it is part of the revealed programme, as it is also staked upon the very existence of Jehovah, that the earth shall be filled with His glory (Num. xiv. 21), or, in other words, that the knowledge of His will shall cover the earth as the waters do the sea.
Everything, then, in the social system will as truly declare the glory of God as the material heavens. The apostles once more upon the scene, their sounds will again go forth into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.—(Rom. x. 18.) The dark obscurations of ignorance and superstition will then be chased away by the appearance of an unclouded dawn, and the arising of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in his beams; whose going forth shall be as a bridegroom, and as a strong man to run a race; his shining circuit will compass the entire circle of the newly-created heaven, so that nothing will be hid from the genial heat and healing influences of his spreading and golden wings It will be then that “the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” and “those who turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.”
This psalm can then be sung with a new zest as fitly eulogising things then in existence, which it now evangelises to spiritual penetration as joyful matters of faith and hope. He who ruleth over men in that world will be just, ruling in the fear of God; for which reason his reign is beautifully compared by the Spirit in David to the light of the p. 210morning and to a sun rising on a morning without clouds, and to clear shining after rain upon tender grass springing out of the earth.—(2 Sam. xxiii. 3, 4). What sparkling dew drops will be developed from the womb of that sun-shiny morning! What beauties of holiness will spring into being as the radiant sun strikes his life-giving warmth into the seeds sown in weakness! O, the transporting joy of lying down to sleep under one heaven and rising again into being under another (Job xiv. 12), for none of the lights of these heavens have power in their beams to heal the dead; but, brethren and sisters, our Dayspring has the keys of death and the grave; when he descends, the whole world will be enlightened with his glory; for he is the brightness of Him who dwells in light unapproachable. Like Gabriel to Daniel he flies swiftly in the interests of his beloved; nothing can keep him away; he comes as golden sunbeams to comfort and to cheer; he brings with him beauty for ashes; the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.—(Isaiah lxi. 3.)
Shall we live under those heavens, brethren and sisters? We have had our calling; we have now our work; and, by and bye, we shall have our reward: the nature of the latter, however, as you well know, is predicated upon a wise use of our waiting time. There can only be one sentiment, brethren, as to the character of the inheritance, viz., that it is an eternal and exceeding weight of glory, to which the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared.
If this be your mind, there can only be one individual and united resolve becoming the situation, namely, that neither death nor life, angels, principalities, nor powers, things present, nor things to come, height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which we have in Christ Jesus.
Let us, therefore, so ravish our hearts upon the joy set before us in the gospel, that if God should see fit to yet try us with tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, we may be able to account ourselves more than conquerors, through our faith in him who loved us. Brethren, be not dismayed as the heathen, but be ye of good courage, and forget not that though the flesh is failing, God is the strength of your hearts; therefore, sanctify your hearts before God, gird up the loins of your mind, and comfort yourselves continually with the blessed assurance that “the triumphing of the wicked is short,” and that while “weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning.”
Still, my brethren, we must not deceive ourselves; “God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” We have no right to the comforts of the truth, except we be diligently walking in the obedience it enjoins; if this is not our case, we are practising the grossest of deceptions upon ourselves. Our mutual exhortations are only of value in so far as we turn them to practical account. There is such a thing, you know, as hearing and not understanding, seeing and not perceiving; it is our personal attitude in the truth that at last determines our course to have been one of wisdom or one of folly; he that heareth the words and doeth them is the wise man; he that heareth them and doeth them not is the foolish man. We have all heard the joyful sound; we are now upon our trial; fruits meet for repentance will be asked at our hands; let us see to it that they be fruits of the Spirit; they will not be except we sow to the Spirit, and we can only sow to the Spirit by crucifying the flesh; the one is so contrary to the other, that the exaltation of the one involves the destruction of the other; let us be careful which we exalt and which we destroy. Both results are in our own hands. God, p. 211to a large extent, has been pleased to make us master of our own destiny; if we do not fully realise this lesson, we are liable to make a miserable failure in the end. Patience, wisdom, perseverance, and stability are necessary to a successful issue. If we would overcome we must be prepared to endure hardness, whilst we are campaigning against the enemy without and within. A preliminary rule is as it were, committed to our hands; our throne is the enlightened understanding, our subjects the lusts of the flesh, and our territory this earthly body; if we fail in conquering here at home in the body, we shall not be entrusted with the higher and more important work of subjugating the world in the age to come; we shall only rise from the dead to realise more forcibly the truth of the wise man’s words: “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down and without walls.”
Seeing now we know these things, brethren, beforehand, happy are we if we do them. To this end let us ever remember the words of the Psalm we have read together, that
“The law of the Lord is perfect;
The testimony of the Lord is sure;
The statutes of the Lord are right;
The commandment of the Lord is pure;
The fear of the Lord is clean;
The judgments of the Lord are true.”
And, then, let us take along with these divine principles the sure law which governs their operation amongst men, viz., that they convert the soul; they make wise the simple; they enlighten the eyes; and are for this reason, and in respect of our present need, more to be desired than fine gold; and, indeed, it will be found, upon a fair and genuine trial, that the Spirit’s description is no exaggeration of their quality—that they are truly sweeter than honey. And, moreover, there is one thing more of infinite importance: by them the servants of God are warned and admonished; and, finally, let it be written indelibly upon your hearts, and hoisted up as a frontlet before your eyes, that the keeping of them secures a great recompence of reward.
F. R. SHUTTLEWORTH.